A Donzela de Ouro

Shot in the United Kingdom and the continent, The Story Of Esther Costello seems to be a hybrid production of The Miracle Worker and Johnny Belinda. Heather Sears's performance in the title role might have been worthy of Oscar consideration had not Jane Wyman already won an award playing a deaf mute.

Joan Crawford plays a wealthy American who is separated from her husband Rossano Brazzi and touring Ireland, specifically the village of her birth. While there the village priest Denis O'Dea introduces Joan to Sears who is deaf, blind, and mute. In a prologue we see why she is that way, as a child she found a cache of gunpowder and grenades left over from the Rebellion which explodes killing her mother and leaving her as she is.

Eventually Joan takes Heather from the squalid conditions she's living in courtesy of her aunt Maureen Delaney and gives her the Helen Keller treatment. When Sears becomes a celebrity of sorts, Brazzi reenters the picture see the cash cow Sears has become what with the charities organized in her name.

A rather unbelievable 'cure' for Sears mars what could have been a much better drama. The players all perform well, particularly Crawford who is in her best Mildred Pierce mode as an adoptive mother to a much more appreciative child than Ann Blyth.

Definitely one for Joan Crawford fans.

Joan Crawford looked back on The Story of Esther Costello as her last "really top" movie and remarked that if she had earned her Oscar for Mildred Pierce, she should have gotten "two" for Esther Costello. Perhaps one each for the dramatic arches of her eyebrows, which by this stage of her career were pencilled in with such savage abandon that they could have spanned the wide Missouri.

The grim determination she brought to every role at this late stage in her career remains tauter than ever. As a wealthy American visiting her birthplace in Ireland, she is nudged by the local Padre to look in on poor Esther (Heather Sears), a girl rendered blind and deaf by the explosion of a grenade left over from the "troubles." and living in squalid poverty. Of course Crawford takes Esther back to America, where she finds her the best schools for those similarly afflicted. Soon, the heart-wrenching tale reaches the press, at the same time luring Crawford's long-lost husband (Rossano Brazzi) out of the hole he's been hiding in.

Implausibly, Crawford falls for him all over again, and succumbs to his grandiose schemes for national and European fund-raising rallies for the "Esther Costello Fund," a racket for his self-aggrandizement. He also drinks a lot and starts stealing peeks at the blind Esther slipping in and out of her clothes. (She's busting out of the schoolgirlish frocks and ribbons she's given to dress in.)

Along happens a young reporter who's also smitten with Esther but who starts suspecting that the racket is not on the up and up. From then on it's a race to see whether Brazzi's financial chicanery or his unhealthy interest catches up with him. Crawford does, however, and ends the melodrama a la Thelma Jordon.

The distinctive and responsive score is by Georges Auric, and Jack Clayton gets an odd credit that suggests he had more to do with the movie than its nominal director. The story is certain offbeat and interesting enough, but its social comment invariably defers to the lures of heavy melodrama. The film reaches a crescendo when Brazzi learns that Esther has been left alone; he slithers to her bedside while thunder crashes and the French doors blow open to let a torrent of rain into the room...You get the picture. It's the kind of touch that's effective to watch but which undermines any claim to a serious exploration of the unusual subject matter. It's that kind of literal heavy-handedness that led Lenny Bruce to devise an irreverent (and very funny) routine on this movie's story line.

The first part is the most interesting : it may reminds you of Montgomery Clift , as a private taking in a young child and teaching him English to communicate with him at the end of WW2 ("the search");most likely Anne Bancroft (Annie Sullivan) and her pupil Patty Duke (Helen Keller )in Arthur Penn's masterpiece "the miracle worker"(which had not been yet made) .

They hint at Helen Keller and this fictitious story may have been partly inspired by her real story ;Helen Keller spent her whole life helping her fellow men,collecting funds to create schools ,a true heroine of the last century.

But ,as soon as Mrs Landi's '(Crawford) husband (Rossano Brazzi ) appears , it's downhill all the way ;acting becomes pure camp and the story is guaranteed to net nothing but horse laughs .Only Heather Sears ,the ugly duckling turned into a swan , preserves her dignity ;an extra star fo her.

The story is by renowned novelist Nicholas Monsarrat, also known for "The Cruel Sea" and "The Capillan of Malta", two other realistic and documentary novels, but this is not about the war. It's about a deaf and mute poor orphan in Ireland, who is taken care of by Joan Crawford, who makes an unusually impressive performance, without falling into pits of sentimentality and bathos. Heather Sears as the young girl is the chief star of the film, though, unknown and making the performance of her life for a start. The real crushing thing is the story, though. It is devastating in its merciless exposure of commercial exploitation of humanitarianism. The real drama begins as Rossano Brazzi enters the stage. He is a former husband of Joan Crawford, whom she tried to separate from, but when he reappears she is too weak for him, with very unforeseen consequences. The film is beautifully made with brilliant music, and the realism of the story couldn't have been carried through more consistently. I was often irritated with Joan Crawford for her overbearing manners, but here she is quite perfect and admirable all the way.

This film is perfectly cast, with Joan Crawford at the helm, playing out her trademark histrionics. She was accustomed to this typecasting, and accordingly played it to the hilt in The Story of Esther Costello. This melodramatic on screen persona is a far cry from her early work, in such films as Rain (1932) where she plays a prostitute.

Crawford's melodramatic persona was a safe bet for her since Mildred Pierce (1945) for which she won the Academy Award. This was the making of Crawfod as well as the breaking. She seemed to be stuck in the character of Mildred Pierce from then on in.

As for her co-star Rossano Randi, it was a brave move for him to take on the part of the slime ball rapist, embezzler, and exploiter. It was a risk for his career as an actor, and it could have the affect of stereotyping people from Latin extraction.

The part of the title role; as in Esther Costello, was played exceeding well by Heather Sears. All of her acting was conveyed through emotion and gestures alone. This was especially played well in her vulnerable scenes, such as that of the rape victim.

The fact that Esther overcomes many of her obstacles, the narrative of the story turns victimhood into survival. A powerful theme with a message of hope. However the end of the film, where Esther recovers from her disabilities, is too much.

If the viewer can overcome the melodrama of this film, it has some powerful messages in it. For that reason it's worth a look at.